


Into Tomorrow

by AboutBatman (MistyDawn)



Series: Superbat Week 2020 [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Angst, Character Death, First Kiss, Ghost Bruce, Halloween, M/M, Superbat Week 2020, but bruce is literally a ghost so what do you expect, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyDawn/pseuds/AboutBatman
Summary: Super sight and super hearing aren't the only senses heightened by Kryptonian physiology- aka the one where Clark can see ghosts.Superbat week 2020: Day 7- First Kiss
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Series: Superbat Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851754
Comments: 18
Kudos: 86





	Into Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank my beta [cattyk8!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattyk8)
> 
> So I checked my notes and it turns out I wrote this baby all the way back in April in preparation for superbat week lol. All that time to prepare and I still haven't finished day 6 oops (It will have to be posted as a late addition next week). 
> 
> For superbat week day 7: First Kiss

The heavy oak door opens inwards and creaks as Clark steps into the room. It’s empty. Just like every other room in this wing of the manor. White sheets cover various pieces of furniture, concealing them under a dusty shroud, preserving them for the day they’ll be used again. He can see the ghost of their outlines through the thin sheets; a large desk, an armchair, something that looks roughly like a head.

Clark lifts up the fabric to look at the stone bust of a man that looks vaguely familiar. He stares at the hard stone face for a moment before turning to survey the rest of the room. The only thing left uncovered is the wall-to-wall bookshelf. The book spines stand colourfully in the dulled moonlight streaming in from the windows, a silent library cataloguing their previous owners’ hobbies and interests, just sitting and patiently waiting for the day they are opened again.

He sighs and jogs out of the room, along the hallway, and then up the darkened grand staircase in the foyer.

A gigantic crystal chandelier hangs from the centre of the high ceiling; Clark can only imagine what it must have been like in its heyday. He’s seen it in the sun before, the rainbow refractions bouncing off the walls as the bright crystals direct the rays of light. It had been opulent in its beauty, a true signifier of wealth.

He wonders what it might have been like to be a guest in this house. Rich socialites walking through the main entryway in their suits and ball gowns, covered in fine silks and heavy jewellery, trying their best to outdo their peers. The chandelier is the first thing they would see, beaming down from the roof, its thousands of crystals twinkling like starlight. Their fickle beauty and attempts at decadence would have been outshone by its glittering diamond light.

But there is no light anymore, no lavish parties or waiters greeting guests with silver trays of champagne. Only silence and the sun-stained lines of wood that give away where the plush carpet had once lain.

Clark has combed nearly every inch of the house, from the ballroom to the kitchens, but neither his super-hearing nor x-ray vision are helping with his search. In a burst of speed, he looks in all the deserted guest bedrooms. They are completely empty, left exactly as they were on the day they were abandoned.

“Where are you?!” he calls, but there’s no answer. He listens for a noise, for anything, but not even the mice that live in the attic stir. He worriedly looks at his worn wristwatch. It’s twelve minutes to midnight; he needs to hurry if he wants to be there when the clock ticks over into tomorrow.

In the entire house, there are only two locked rooms. The master bedroom and one equally as large across the hall from it. Clark has the keys to both. He goes to the master bedroom first and slots the key into the lock. It clicks with a sharp loud sound that signifies it hasn’t been used for quite some time.

Much like the rest of the house, this was a space that had once been lived in, but had clearly been rearranged and packed away at some point. The bed has been stripped of its sheets leaving only a bare mattress perched on the bed frame, and the vanity and various pieces of furniture are similarly covered like in the study downstairs. Boxes line one of the far walls, and he doesn’t need his x-ray vision to know they are filled with the clothes of previous occupants.

Clark stands at the doorway. He doesn't enter; this was one of the few rooms he isn’t welcome in. He never pushed as to why, content with the soft ‘no’ he’d been given when he’d asked about the room. He takes one last look before turning and closing the door behind him.

That leaves one final room. He takes the few strides to the door across the hall and knocks. “Are you in there?” he asks.

He stains his ears to listen. No reply.

“I’m coming in, alright?” He unlocks the door and steps inside. It’s the oddest bedroom in the entire house. Unlike the others, it is still littered with the possessions of its owner; it hasn’t been packed away or covered like the rest. Instead it’s frozen in time, almost like someone will come back at any moment and crawl into bed.

_Almost._

A thick layer of dust coats everything. Clark lifts into the air slightly and hovers into the room. He doesn’t want to disturb the dust with his footsteps; it would shatter the illusion, and for some reason the thought of that sits uncomfortably in his stomach.

He peers around. There are not many personal possessions. A crocheted blanket is spread over the bed, a book set face down and open beside the lamp on the bed stand. There are shelves in the corner with a few knick-knacks, the most prominent being an action figure that Clark had been told was modelled after someone called ‘The Grey Ghost’.

The main clutter in the room is sprawled over the desk pushed against the far wall. A stack of mathematical and engineering textbooks have been pushed to one side, but the rest of the surface is covered in sheets of loose paper filled with the bunched, looping handwriting of someone that had spent countless hours writing down their ideas. Almost as if they were afraid the thoughts would spill over the brim of their mind if they didn’t write them down on paper fast enough.

But the room is still and silent, a forgotten memorial to the boy that had once lived in it.

“Where are you hiding today?” Clark mumbles under his breath.

He goes to leave, but stops short when he sees movement outside. Careful to re-lock the door first, he flies down the staircase and then along the back path into the woods that border the overgrown rose gardens. The trees stand tall and menacing in the dark autumn night, and Clark is sure if he were a normal human, he would see nothing but pitch black. As it is, however, he is able to clearly see the kneeling figure in the clearing up ahead.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he says as he drops to the ground and walks up the mud-worn path between the trees. The other teen doesn’t look up. He continues to stare at the metal structure in front of him.

Clark swallows. “I uh..I found some information. About you and your family.”

At the word _family_ , the boy looks up. He isn’t much younger than Clark. He has arched black eyebrows and hauntingly beautiful blue eyes. His high cheek bones are sharp, but they are shaped in a way that suggests puberty isn’t done with him yet.

“My family?” he says hopefully, “You’ve found them?”

Clark Kent grew up in Kansas. He lived in a small town in a rural part of the state, and if he was honest with himself, he probably would have stayed there for the rest of his life. But fate had decided a small life in a small town was not for Clark. At puberty, his powers had manifested and thrown any hopes of a quiet existence to the wind. Now, at the age of 18, he had moved to Metropolis in the hope that it would hold the answers he so desperately needed.

He had beat out other hopefuls at a chance to intern at the Daily Planet, and weeks of being the coffee boy had yielded an opportunity in the form of one of the junior reporters going on maternity leave. He’d been helping her with her project on historical listed buildings, so when Perry had called him into his office and asked if he could take the final photographs of the Gotham listings on his own, he had jumped at the chance.

It had brought him to the rainy city of Gotham, to the empty shell of Wayne Manor, and then surprisingly to the forlorn boy in front of him.

“I think so. Sorry it took so long. Perry kept giving me stuff to do before he would let me look in the archives.”

Bruce looks back toward the metal grating. In front of them, in a small clearing, is a deep, dark hole. It reaches far into the ground, stretching out beneath their feet in a scattered web of caves. Once, the open maw of the cave had been uncovered, but now it has been sealed off with thick iron bars that criss-cross over themselves to block it completely. Ten years ago, a seventeen-year-old Bruce Wayne had fallen to his death in it while attempting to map the caves.

Clark looks down into the darkness. He can see the jagged rocks and stalactites that jut up from the rock. A cloud of bats swirl in one of the bigger caverns, and Clark can’t help but shiver at the thought of Bruce down there, alone and dying slowly in the darkness.

But he _had_ died.

And now his ghost sits in front of him, destined to haunt the grounds of his ancestral home until whatever is tethering him to this plane of existence is resolved.

“Bruce why are you out here? You know it’s not good for you.”

Bruce stands, but continues to look down through the bars. The fog is getting thicker as the night continues onward, and the dense mist twirls about itself as it descends, choking off whatever meagre moonlight manages to pierce it.

Bruce closes his eyes and seems to take a deep breath. Clark had asked him about it once. He was dead, so why was he still trying to breathe? Bruce hadn’t been able to answer. They’d sat up all night on the rooftop pondering why and had eventually settled on Bruce’s spirit trying to mimic what it had done when he still had a body.

Bruce looks at Clark, his blue eyes like ice in the low light. “I was just trying to remember.”

Clark had many talents and even more inborn powers. He had his x-ray vision and his superior vision, but on top of both, he could see things others couldn’t. It wasn’t like looking through skin to bone or being able to magnify anything he wanted until he could see the electrons bouncing around. He could see things, sense things on another plane. He could feel the supernatural and, in some cases, see ghosts.

The first had been the old woman down the lane. His parents had sat him down one night and told him old Patsy had passed. He’d gone to the funeral, bundled into his starchy church clothes, and sat and watched as her various cousins and family members wept. The next day he’d seen her on her porch, rocking gently in her favourite rocking chair. His parents hadn’t believed him at first. Since then, he’d seen more and more of the dead—not all though, some passed on peacefully, while others with unfinished business remained trapped at the sites of their deaths.

And like all the dead, the longer they lingered, the more they forgot. When he’d met Bruce all those months ago, he had already forgotten his own name. Clark had thankfully been able to tell him, guessing that the soft-spoken teenager was the same one that was listed as the late owner of the house. But the gaps in Bruce’s memory made it difficult to figure out how to help him to move on.

On good days he’d have fleeting memories of his parents, but still not enough to know where they were buried. On bad days, he forgot who Clark was. Clark hated those days. Sometimes Bruce would be suspicious of him, while other times he’d be happy for someone to talk to.

Those were the worst days of all. Those days Bruce would forget he was dead; he would insist that his parents were coming home soon and that they would love to meet him. Sometimes Clark wouldn’t tell him, he’d just let Bruce exist in the lie until something triggered the melancholy to seep back in.

“What have you remembered today?”

“As much as I can.” Bruce walks through him and starts on the path back to the house.

Clark jogs up behind him. “Bruce, I know where you’re buried. Where all three of you are buried.”

Bruce stops walking, he turns to Clark with sorrowful eyes. “Thank you, Clark.” He smiles softly. “But it doesn’t change that I can’t leave the grounds.”

Clark’s eyes light up with excitement. He glances at his watch. “Well, in one minute and 37 seconds you will be able to!”

The boy's eyebrows scrunch up in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

Clark can barely contain himself, he’s shifting from foot to foot on the damp grass. “In one minute, it will be midnight!”

“And?”

“And tonight is October 30th! So tomorrow will be…” He pauses, letting the understanding dawn on the other boy’s face.

“Halloween,” Bruce finishes. “Clark, you’re a genius!”

Clark blushes and hopes that somehow the misty air hides the redness of his face, “Well…uh…it was nothing, really. I just figured since ghosts become untethered from their death points on Halloween, that I should at least give you somewhere to go.”

Halloween marked the thinning of the planes of existence between the dead and the living. Spirits could move across boundaries, and people that were stuck became unstuck as they crossed over for a few short hours.

“How are we going to get there, though?” Bruce looks across the large garden to the shabby parking garage. “I’m pretty sure all the cars were sold and even if they weren’t, I’m not exactly sure the police will accept my driver’s licence.”

Clark laughs. “Wow, was that a joke? Something must be in the air if Bruce Wayne the sombre ghost is making jokes!”

Bruce pouts playfully. “Well I have been known to make them.” Clark laughs louder this time. “…Occasionally.”

Clark grins. “I’ll fly you there.”

The other boy’s dark eyebrows rise up. “You mean—”

“We’ll be able to touch,” he finishes.

“How much longer until midnight?” Bruce asks; there is emotion in the ghost’s pale eyes, but he can’t quite say what it is.

Clark glances at his watch. “Fifteen seconds.”

The boys both stare at each other. For months, they’ve known each other. For months, they’ve been at each other’s side, building a friendship that has snowballed into something much deeper. But in all that time, they have never touched.

Clark’s mouth goes dry. In just a few short seconds, he will be able to reach out and feel the other boy for the first time. “Three, two, one…midnight.”

They both stand perfectly still, looking into each other’s eyes as if caught in a spell. Bruce breaks it first. He reaches an unsure hand out, and Clark starts into action to copy him. Their fingers meet, and instead of Bruce’s hand phasing through Clark’s flesh, their fingers press against each other. Bruce’s skin is cold like ice, but it's real, and solid, and Clark’s brain nearly short-circuits with the knowledge that they are touching.

“Clark,” Bruce murmurs, and he suddenly realises he’s stepped forward until they are nearly chest-to-chest.

Their eyes lock, and Clark swallows the lump in his throat before stepping back, flustered. “Well uh...we should be on our way before the mist lifts. It should be a good enough cover that no one will see us in the sky.”

Bruce looks at him a bit longer than usual, eyes searching his face before he relents and says, “Yes, we shouldn’t waste any more time.”

* * *

Bruce looks down at the slowly nearing graveyard in open wonder. “This is amazing! Your powers are amazing, Clark!”

He’s shown Bruce what he could do before, but never like this. Their bodies are pressed together as they drift through the sky, with Bruce’s arms wrapped securely around Clark’s neck as he gazes at the landscape below.

Clark slows their descent and listens in for any human heartbeats among the rows of headstones. “If only everyone would think that.”

They touchdown on the dew-laden grass still entangled in each other’s arms, and their cheeks briefly brush against each other as Bruce unwraps himself and steps away. “Why would they not? You could do so much good and help so many people.”

He swallows. “My Pa, he doesn’t want me to. He says once people know what I can do, they’ll fear me. Maybe even some of them will try to kill me.”

Bruce looks out across the repeating lines of grave markers. “I think I wanted to once.”

“Wanted to what? Kill me?!”

Bruce looks up and rolls his eyes in amusement. “Clark no. I wanted to help people. Help the city.” He shrugs. “I guess I died before I could do that.”

“You would have helped a lot of people. I can feel it.”

“But I didn’t. I died, even when no one was trying to kill me.” He looks Clark in the eye. “Wouldn’t you rather die knowing you did everything in your power to help make things better? You’ll never know what people will think until you show them what you are.” He walks over and puts a solid hand on Clark’s shoulder. “Until you show them _who_ you are.”

They stand in silence for a moment.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He turns away to hide his face and starts walking towards the more elaborate graves in the cemetery. “They are buried over here.”

Duplicate stone grave markers give way to polished granite and then elaborate statues of weeping angels bent over overgrown tombs. Unlike the rest of the city, Old Gotham Cemetery is atop a hill. As such, the mist that blankets the rest of the island doesn’t reach the top; instead it settles at the bottom of the road leading to the graveyard, licking at the bottom of the incline like waves in a sea of still white. The moon shines down unobstructed to cast reaching shadows that cut across each grave like pits of black.

The boys walk in silence. Clark reads each name as they walk past; some of the graves are relatively new, while others are so worn the names are illegible.

“There, that’s the Wayne plot.” Clark points up ahead at a part of land that seems to be set apart from the rest. A waist-high wrought-iron fence wraps itself around the large cluster of graves. A tall mausoleum stands in the middle, and around it are an array of expensive-looking headstones.

Bruce walks forward and nearly falls over himself when he walks right into the fence. Clark laughs and holds open the creaky gate for him. “Forgot you were solid today?”

If ghosts could blush he was sure the teen would be bright red. “Yeah, it’s hard to remember I actually have to use doors now,” he says sheepishly.

They step into the allotment; both sets of eyes sweeping over the various names etched into stone. The mausoleum is too old for any new burials, likely it has been filled for decades. They skirt past several graves, all bearing the Wayne name, some centuries old like Wilhelmina Wayne and some only decades like Silas Wayne.

The three newest additions to the family plot stand tall and proud at the far end. Thomas, Martha and Bruce Wayne are lined up in a row. Their black polished obelisk grave markers reach into the sky and are adorned with a brass Wayne family crest. Each grave is carefully maintained, free of any weeds and topped with a wreath of fresh white lilies.

Clark stares down at the tightly packed Earth. It’s strange being here. He knows that Bruce is under that soil, his cold bones encased in the finest wooden casket money could buy. He doesn’t dare look.

“This is it,” the other boy whispers.

Clark looks at him. He looks small next to the towering graves, his shoulders are hunched as he stares at his parents’ names printed neatly onto stone. Bruce walks to the headstone and runs a hand over the words, marking the date of his own demise. “It’s strange that I can exist in two places at once. All these years, part of me has been here, and I didn’t even know about it.”

“Would it have changed anything?”

Bruce circles back to stand in front of all three headstones. “I suppose not.” He surveys the open expanse of the graveyard before him. “Mother, Father! I’m here!” he shouts.

All is still and silent; Bruce shouts again, but there is no answering call. An owl in a far-off tree takes flight, its beating wings the only noise in the empty night air.

Clark can see the fear shimmering in the other’s eyes. “Clark why aren’t they here?” he asks, sounding like a lost child.

Clark searches his brain for an answer, for anything to reassure his friend. “I don’t know. Can you feel their presence?”

Bruce strides back over to his parents’ headstones and places a hand on each. He pauses for a second before glancing back at Clark. “No. I…I can’t feel anything.”

“Bruce maybe—”

“Mom! Dad!” The words echo across the hill. “Please!” He sinks to his knees in the wet grass. “Please, where are you?” Bruce turns to Clark. “Where are they? Why aren’t they here?” He folds over on himself and grips his hair in his hands. “They were _supposed_ to be here.”

Clark digs a crumpled newspaper article out of his pocket. He had hoped the graves would give Bruce the closure he needed. He had hoped it wouldn't come to this.

"There is one other place." He flattens out the scrap of paper and holds it out. Bruce takes it from him between two pale fingers.

"What is it?" the boy asks as he peers at the rows of typed writing.

"Crime Alley." There's no easy way to say it, so Clark pushes on. "It's where they died."

Bruce's eyes flick across the page as he reads the grisly details of his own parents’ murder, "Witnessed by their only son, Bruce Wayne, age 8." He looks stricken as he glances up at his companion. "Clark...I..I was _there._ I was…" His eyes unfocus for a second, and he whispers, "The pearls. I...I remember the pearls."

He looks back down and runs a thumb over the grainy picture of a graffiti-covered alley cordoned off with reams of police tape. "They are there." This time, when he looks at Clark, there is conviction in his eyes. "I know it."

Clark smiles and holds out his hand for Bruce to take.

* * *

The mist blankets the entire city as they fly over it, and the colourful lights of the neon signs plus the orange glow of the street lamps peek out of the fog like some sort of abstract painting stretched out in front of them.

Bruce clings to him, even if he doesn't need to. Clark has seen ghosts fly before, but they were the old ones, the ones that had been left tethered to Earth for so long they had forgotten what it was like to be human. He’s sure that if he lets go, the boy won’t fall; he’d probably float along beside him, soaring through the low clouds on instinct. But he’s waited so long to hold him like this. To feel the press of the other's body against his own as he holds him tightly. He doesn’t want to let go.

They descend lower and lower until they have to weave through chimneys that jut into the sky and spew smoke. Even at 3am, Clark can hear the telltale buzz of life. Gotham is one of those cities that never sleeps; partygoers laugh and clink glasses together as they spill from the clubs, and night shift workers trudge with heavy footsteps as they load deliveries into rumbling lorries.

Yet as they touch down at the mouth of a darkened alley, all seems quiet. A van rushes past, splashing through a puddle, but it turns the corner onto the next road and leaves them standing alone on the empty street.

“This is it Bruce,” Clark says, breaking the fragile silence.

Bruce steps back almost reluctantly. Clarks skin tingles from where the other boy had gripped it.

Bruce squints into the darkened alleyway, but the fog is like a blank wall of impenetrable white. “I can’t see anything. Are you sure this is the place?”

“Yeah, this is it.” He holds a hand out. “Shall we?”

Bruce immediately takes it in a firm grip, and Clark is sure if he wasn't a ghost he would be trembling. He squeezes the hand. “It’s fine, okay? I’m here.”

“Yeah.” Bruce looks at him and offers a soft smile. “I’m just...I don’t know what to expect.”

Clark pulls him in closer to his body to reassure him. “You don't have to do this alone. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Bruce worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. “What if they aren't here? What if they passed on without me?”

He’s afraid that he’s been left behind by his family. Clark can feel how anxious he is by the way he clings to his hand like a lifeline. He can't help but feel apprehensive too; if Bruce’s parents are here, if they are what he needs to move on, then he’ll be gone forever. Clark will be left alone, and he’ll never see Bruce again.

He remembers the old lady in the rocking chair. He’d known her and her family all his life, she had been a friend of his mother’s, and her daughter had babysat him when he was a child. She’d been a happy woman, always smiling, never having a need or want for anything. He had never been able to figure out why she hadn’t passed on; he’d tried to talk to her, but by the end she’d been near senile in life and that had only translated into an even more scattered mind in death.

Even when her daughter and new husband moved into the house, she’d remained there for years, patiently rocking and waiting. It wasn't until her daughter returned from a hospital trip with a new baby bundled to her chest that the old woman finally stirred. She’d looked loving down on her grandchild, smiled, and then disappeared, her final wish fulfilled.

He shakes his thoughts away and smiles back at the other boy. “If they are here, we will find them, alright?”

Bruce squares his shoulders, his confidence renewed. “Alright.”

Then as a pair, they step off the road and enter the narrow passage between buildings. The further into Crime Alley they venture, the darker it gets. Any light from the street is immediately choked off by the oppressive fog, and Clark only has his superior sight to go by.

He looks back, but he can't even see the mouth of the entrance anymore. The fog has engulfed them, swallowed them up and fed them to the darkness. Bruce is already dead and Clark is near invulnerable, but that doesn't stop him from clutching the other boy close, as if to shield him from any danger that might be lurking in the shadows.

The sound of a glass bottle hitting concrete startles them both, and Bruce pushes Clark behind him before a black cat curls itself around the edge of an overfilled dumpster.

Both boys sigh in relief and awkwardly laugh. “That was...unexpected.”

“I nearly jumped out of my skin, and I don't even have any!” Bruce exclaims.

Clark smiles broadly. “Wait, hold on. Was that another joke?”

The ghost shoves his shoulder. “Shut up,” he says with a small smile.

“Two jokes in one night? Gosh, Halloween really _is_ causing supernatural events!”

The cat stares accusingly at Bruce with big green eyes then arches its back and hisses. The smile on Bruce’s face fades. “Do you think it can tell what I am?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. A lot of animals can sense things humans usually can’t, so maybe it can tell you aren’t supposed to be here.” Mischief twinkles in Clark’s eyes. “Or maybe it just really hates your jokes.”

Bruce pulls him away from the creature and deeper into the alley. “It wasn’t _that_ bad. Was it?”

Clark watches Bruce as he talks. In the low light, he can just about make out the contours of his face and the gentle curve of his nose. The boy's Adam's apple bobs with each word, and he smiles as he finishes his sentence and looks at him with bright eyes. “No, it wasn’t bad at all.”

Up ahead, the fog swirls and spirals as if dancing in the otherwise windless air; there is no discernable light source in the crushing darkness, but the further they go, the more it becomes unnaturally lighter than the rest of the narrow alley. They move forward, one steady step at a time.

Bruce’s hand tightens in his. “Clark. I think I can feel something…”

“Bruce!” Clark breathes and points up ahead.

The mist seems to thin enough for them to make out the silhouettes of two people, a man and a woman, standing 20 paces in front of them.

Bruce’s voice wobbles as he speaks. “It’s them! It’s really them! They waited for me all this time.” He lets go of Clark’s hand and begins to run towards the couple.

This is it. The dreaded moment when Bruce will leave him. Clark didn’t even say goodbye, didn’t even get a glimpse of that perfect face one last time.

Bruce stops running suddenly, halfway between the two sets of people, he turns back around and runs at Clark. Bruce crashes into him and he barely has enough time to wrap his arms around his waist before his friend is kissing him. The lips are soft and cold and pliable, and Clark can do nothing but lean further into the kiss.

They kiss for what seems an eternity, neither of them needing to break for oxygen, before Bruce pulls back to look at him. “Thank you for this.” Clark has bever seen a ghost actually cry but he can see the unshed tears in Bruce’s eyes. “Clark I can never repay you—”

Clark takes Bruce’s face in hand and kisses him again. “I love you.”

The tears creep over the edges and spill down Bruce’s pale white cheeks. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish we could be together forever. But I—” He chokes off on a sob.

Clark can feel his own tears wet his face. “But you have to go.” He takes both of the teen’s cold hands in his steady grip. “It’s time, Bruce. It’s what you’ve been waiting for. It’s what _they’ve_ been waiting for.”

Bruce closes his eyes and leans his forehead against Clark’s. “I know.” When he opens them again, they are just as blue as Clark knows they will be, but they are filled with so much emotion, it cuts through the foggy air like a beacon. “I love you.”

They kiss again, as one final goodbye, then Bruce turns and walks towards his parents. The closer he gets to them, the smaller he seems to get, until he morphs from the familiar lanky teen into something unknown to Clark.

The mist still hangs in the air, but it twists in on itself until Clark can see the couple in perfect clarity. They look out of place in the dank alley; the man wears a crisp suit under his coat and the woman wears a beaded line of pearls around her neck. Both smile in synchrony when they see their child running to them. They kneel on the grimy ground and open their arms wide to catch Bruce as he flings himself at them.

The three stand as one. Martha looks up at him and winks, then Thomas turns to regard him and nods. It’s a silent interaction, but he can see the gratitude in their eyes and the joy in their body language. They turn, the child in the middle holding their hands and giggling as they swing him between them. They walk away at a comfortable pace, slowly fading as the mist rushes to engulf them, but before they disappear completely, the child turns for one final look back and gives Clark a beaming smile.

He can feel the sob catching in his throat as the family finally dissolves into nothing. He can’t help but feel regretful; he just lost his best friend. But he’s known this was the only option since he first met the sad ghost of a boy in the forgotten carcass of a once grand home. Seeing that smile on Bruce’s face was enough to know he wouldn't change a thing. It was proof that he’d made the right choice, even if it hurt him like nothing else ever had.

He stands for a moment, breathing in the polluted air, just standing still for once and letting the canopy of city sounds wash over him like waves. Four streets over, two homeless men argue over a game of cards. Further in the city, the partygoers trudge home on unsteady legs. Somewhere, an alarm clock goes off to a sleepy citizen’s grumbles. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply in and out. Police sirens wail, and gunshots erupt on the docks, pelting the warehouses with bullets as the guns are lazily aimed.

Clark opens his eyes. Bruce’s words from earlier ring in his ears. Maybe he’ll stay in Gotham for a while. And who knows? Maybe when his time comes, Bruce will be waiting for him on the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! 
> 
> I had a thought one day that it would be cool to write a supernatural themed superbat fic. Then I started thinking about how Clark's powers might allow him to perceive certain things and this fic was born (also because I couldn't resist the angst that comes with ghost Bruce).
> 
> Comments and kudos appreciated <3
> 
> Come see me on my Tumblr [aboutbatman!](https://aboutbatman.tumblr.com/)


End file.
